How to unlock the Nexus S bootloader

Excellent news, folks. The bootloader on the Samsung Nexus S (watch our hands-on video) can be unlocked just as the Nexus One's was. Gandalf44 in the Android Central Forums reminds us of the instructions:

Shutdown the phone

Hold down volume up + power

Now you are in the standard recovery mode

Assuming you have 2.3 SDK installed with fastboot (Google around for that info..), now on terminal/windows or Windows cmd depending on OS type "fastboot devices" to check your device can be seem via USB

Assuming you device is seen via fastboot devices, now type "fastboot oem unlock"

Accept ... and new bootloader is unlocked...

Why would you want to unlock the bootloader? You need access to install a custom recovery. And you need a custom recovery to install custom ROMs. And you need custom ROMs because, well, you just do. Trust us. So this is very good news indeed. If we don't see custom ROMs by the end of the day, somebody's slacking. :p More in the Nexus S forums!